AUSTIN, Texas — At the East Campus Garage in Downtown Austin, transit and community leaders like Texas Transportation Commission Chairman J. Bruce Bugg Jr., Commissioner Robert Vaughn and Sen. Judith Zaffrini all helped break ground on the future of Interstate 35.
The I-35 Capital Express Central Project is now underway, with construction to cost $4.5 billion. Bugg Jr. said it will aim to rebuild the heart of Austin.
"Austin in this part that we're tackling today is the third largest congestion point in the entire state of Texas. So we're coming in and we're going to make it better for moms and dads and for kids," Bugg Jr. said.
The project will add two non-tolled high-occupancy-vehicle managed lanes in each direction from U.S. 290 East to State Highway 71/Ben White Boulevard and will also remove the upper decks, add boulevard-style segments through downtown and enhance pedestrian and bike paths.
"It includes a lot of infrastructure that will be supportive to CapMetro," said Dottie Watkins, the president and CEO of CapMetro. "We have seen on other highways in the region that when we get a high-occupancy vehicle or managed lane, it makes our buses much more reliable."
Tucker Ferguson, the district engineer for TxDOT's Austin District, expects construction will take about 10 years for the entire corridor.
"We're committed to having three lanes in each direction open at all times, and if there are ever times we do need to close the interstate for constructing or deconstructing cross-street bridges for example, we would do that on off-peak hours," Ferguson said.
But the project is still facing its fair share of opposition.
At the groundbreaking, protesters from Rethink35, an organization fighting the expansion, pushed back against the project. The group and 14 other partners filed a lawsuit against TxDOT, which board president Adam Greenfield expects to go to trial in the coming months.
"Only by people constantly speaking out is the ship going to turn on these disastrous highway expansion projects," Greenfield said. "Expansions don't work. Expansions don't relieve congestion; they make it worse."
It is a race for the future of Austin transit that is now hitting the road, but not without a fight.
Crews have already begun rebuilding the MLK Jr. Boulevard bridge. The next step will begin at Holly Street in early 2025.
Boomtown is KVUE's series covering the explosive growth in Central Texas. For more Boomtown stories, head to KVUE.com/Boomtown.